Vallejo's participatory budgeting process to launch public assemblies

The Vallejo Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee, shown at a recent meeting at the John F. Kennedy Library, put together a rule book for the city's new program. Several members of the committee will help facilitate upcoming community assemblies.

Ideas for ways to improve Vallejo could fill large swimming pools. But what about $3 million worth of swimming pools?

Starting next week, Vallejo's experimental new foray into "participatory budgeting" -- asking the public directly for ways and methods to spend city sales tax revenue -- will begin in earnest. The first of nine public assemblies is scheduled for Tuesday night.

"We feel that everyone in this town is an expert about this town," said Participatory Budgeting Vallejo Community Engagement Coordinator Ginny Browne.

"This is the time for everyone to sort of come into the big room ... and really be part of shaping this process for the next few months," Browne added.

In September, Vallejo volunteers earned Vallejo City Council approval of a participatory budgeting rule book they crafted. The city will be the first in the United States to apply the participatory budgeting concept, first implemented in Brazil in 1989, to citywide projects. Elsewhere in the United States, Chicago and New York City have limited projects to set city districts.

Steering Committee vice chairwoman Lynda Daniels said she is excited about the new public process, and curious to see how much of the community becomes involved. Participatory budgeting, said Daniels, a member of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is like voting.

"If you're not going to participate in the politics of your city and improving it, then don't sit around and complain about the things you don't like about it," Daniels said. "Here's your opportunity to do something. Get involved -- don't just sit back and complain."

Johnny Walker, who joined the steering committee as a representative of the Solano Association of Realtors representative, conceded his initial doubts about the participatory budgeting concept are gone.

"What I was most concerned about when I was reading the (city agenda) packets was that it sounded to me that it would just be neighborhood groups deciding how Measure B sales tax revenue was going to be spent," Walker said. "It's going to be a huge outreach process in order for this to be pulled off, I think."

Walker added that "everyone's going to get together and have an opportunity to discuss what they would do with this pot of money, and then the ideas will be fleshed out over time for viability."

Vallejo residents over 16 will have an opportunity to vote their favorites in the spring. Some heavy lifting will come in when it comes to whittling down the onrush of project ideas to a viable list with plans, cost estimates and other details worked out, Walker said. During each of the upcoming assemblies, participants will be asked to volunteer to become "budget delegates" that will work with the city on feasibility issues.

"The only thing you need to be a budget delegate is a passion and a commitment to see positive change in your community. We'll take care of the rest," Browne said. "This process is intended to create opportunities for people of all backgrounds, regardless of education level or skillset -- to really be as involved as they want to be."

Contact staff writer Jessica A. York at (707) 553-6834 or jyork@timesheraldonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @JYVallejo.

Upcoming public assemblies -- all of which are open to everyone -- will include both general events and those targeted to specific groups. They include: